Fake influencer collab wrecked my weekend popup at the Rose Bowl flea
I run a small vintage booth and agreed to have this TikTok person come do a live from my setup last Sunday. She promised 40k followers and a crowd, but showed up 90 minutes late with a dead phone and just walked around saying things like 'this is so cute' without holding anything up. I prepped 30 extra bundles and printed codes for a discount she never mentioned, and I sold maybe a third of what I usually do on a good day. Has anyone else had a collab that brought zero sales and some chaos? I want to know if there is a polite way to check a creator's real engagement before saying yes.
People treat social media numbers like REAL money now, but most of those numbers are just digital smoke. It's wild how everyone believes the hype before checking if the person can actually bring people to a physical spot.